By Aazam
A strand of hair disrupted a recent SpaceX Crew-5 launch, showcasing the dangers posed by even the most innocuous objects
Engineers quipped that while FOD is a four-letter word, there's nothing strange about its ability to trigger foreign object debris
The incident occurred around 10:25 a.m. on October 5, when the SpaceX pad crew was preparing Crew Dragon Endurance for a Falcon 9 rocket
With four Crew-5 astronauts already inside the capsule and the hatch closed, an attentive eye noticed a single human hair in the latch seal
The hair was designated FOD – an engineering term for foreign object debris – requiring the pad crew to take action
The countdown clock had just ticked at T-90 minutes, so time was of the essence. The pad crew calmly reopened Endurance's hatch
He did another inspection, thoroughly cleaned the sealed area again, and closed the hatch for a second and final time
It's revealing and completely understandable that it would take time for SpaceX pad crews to take a hair out before a rocket launch
In the aerospace industry, FOD is defined as any item that does not belong to a specific location
Whether that location is the hatch seal, the engine, the cockpit or the runway. Debris in the wrong place can damage equipment